This publication provides a brief account of human rights
and their operation in Australia. It was originally
conceived and intended to be a short essay on the subject.
Important developments affecting and restricting human
rights in Australia and the growing public interest in a
range of issues relating to the subject made it necessary to
expand the document. Contributions from a number of
prominent participants in the current intellectual debate
have been included. Nevertheless, the publication is not
intended to be a comprehensive survey. It contains an
outline of the concept of human rights followed by-more
specific treatment of selected areas of special concern.

Although this book was developed without regard to a
pre-settled scheme, it is hoped that its major thematic
concerns will become sufficiently clear to the reader.

The first of these concerns is the necessity to treat human
rights as essentially individual rights as opposed to
collective rights. The philosophical foundation of this book
is the premise that the interests of all persons can be
promoted only by securing to each, sufficient protection
against governmental power and an area of individual
freedom. Implicit in this premise is the rejection of the
notion that there can be a social interest other than the
aggregate of individual interests, or a social purpose other
than the aggregate of individual purposes.

Opposed to this view is the belief that human rights cannot
be secured without active enforcement of rules of conduct
for individual members of society, in the larger interest of
the society as a whole. It is argued, that the unavoidable
consequence of this approach is that the interest of society
has to be determined by an authority other than the
individual members themselves. At best these interests will
be determined by transient majorities in elected
legislatures who in any event pursue ideological goals or
special interests which often do not coincide with popular
wishes. More often these interests are determined by
unelected bureaucrats or by tyrannical regimes.

The second major concern is that the area of individual
freedom should not be transgressed through moral judgements
of ideologically motivated legislatures or bureaucrats. The
majoritarian approach to determine human rights is
fallacious for two main reasons. Firstly, genuine majorities
are hard to ascertain. Second, the moral validity of human
rights rests not on majorities but on the worth and dignity
of each individual. The traditional civil liberties were
evolved and established through the recognition of their
indispensability to human liberty and their value transcends
the short term interests for which they are sought to be
sacrificed by legislative majorities and bureaucratic
adjudicators.

The third major concern of the book is to separate the basic
human rights, or the human rights properly so-called, from
the claims to positive benefits which can be granted only by
restricting civil liberties. The elevation of human needs
and socio-economic claims to the status of human rights is
calculated to undermine individual freedom or at any rate
has that unavoidable effect. The contradiction resulting
from the simultaneous pursuit of civil liberties and such
needs and claims will be demonstrated and a case will be
developed for restoring primacy to the traditional civil
liberties. This is not an argument against the need to
provide welfare for the genuinely needy and the
underprivileged. What is sought to be emphasised is that
welfare is not a right in the true sense of the term. It is
a benefit granted by government, which can be elevated to
the status of a right only at the cost of the traditional
liberties.

Apart from the above concerns, the book will identify and
discuss the particular sources of danger to human rights in
Australia. These will include the philosophy and practices
of the Human Rights Commission, the proliferation of
bureaucratic-adjudicative bodies, the single-issue-group
actions, the bias against individual wealth and achievement,
affirmative action, and the organised and deliberate abuse
of rights.

The basic concepts concerning human rights are outlined in
chapter 2. It focuses on the different classifications of
human rights and some important issues which affect the
proper understanding of the nature of human rights. These
relate to the imperfect or non-absolute character of human
rights, the necessity for restrictions of rights, the need
to satisfactorily resolve inevitable clashes between rights
and the indispensable role of the judiciary in the operation
of any system of rights

Chapter 3 discusses one of the most important historical
sources of human rights, the common law. The nature of human
rights can be better understood if their historical
evolution is examined. Whilst philosophical thought in
Europe has made invaluable contributions to the development
of natural rights and fundamental freedoms, the common law
system is without parallel for its systematic protection of
individual liberty. An awareness of the common law
antecedents of human rights is therefore essential to the
understanding of the distinctive character of human rights
and to appreciate in what respects the traditional liberties
differ from the needs based socio-economic "rights" that
have gained precedence in some quarters.

The creation of human rights by international treaties
stands in sharp contrast to the evolutionary traditions of
western philosophy and methods of the common law system.
Whilst international conventions have recognised many of the
rights traditionally recognised by the common law system,
they have diminished their importance by elevating to the
status of human rights, a wide range of claims which stand
in tension with traditional liberties. chapter 4 analyses
the impact of these treaties on the traditional rights and
investigates the political and ideological thrust of these
instruments. The moral validity of these documents is
questioned. The fraudulent designs of many of their authors
who in practice show total contempt for the rights
proclaimed in the documents are demonstrated.

Chapters 2, 3 and 4 introduce the reader to the traditional and modern approaches to human rights and provide some idea
of the tensions and conflicts that have arisen between the
two approaches. In chapter 5, an attempt is made to explain
these contradictions from both the theoretical and practical
viewpoints. In one sense, this chapter carries the most
important theme of the book. That theme is: if human liberty
is to be preserved, it is essential to draw a distinction
between rights that serve as pre-conditions to liberty and
claims based purely on economic needs which, however
laudable, can be fully realized only at the cost of damage
to overall freedom, involving big government and
counter-productive bureaucratic activity. In other words, it
is of utmost importance and urgency to restore precedence to
the fundamental civil liberties when they come in conflict
with perceived needs based claims that require coercive
measures which infringe on those liberties.

Chapters 6, 7 and 8 respectively contain analyses on the freedom of speech, personal liberty and the freedom of the
individual to hold and enjoy private property. The freedoms
of speech and property (for reasons stated) are among the
rights most vulnerable to interference as a consequence of
coercive utopianism and moral tutelage practised by elected
governments in recent times. Yet these rights together with
personal liberty constitute the basis of all other
liberties.

Equality of opportunity is a fundamental principle of the
civil liberties tradition. Discrimination and the question
of equality are the subjects of chapter 9. This is another
area of importance to the future direction of personal
freedom. There is a movement to convert the right to
equality of opportunity into a right to equal material
conditions of life. This trend reflects a demand for a
gradual transformation of society on totalitarian-socialist
lines. The claims of equality however are never presented in
these terms. They take the form of demands for coercive
measures to equalise opportunities allegedly denied to some
groups in the course of social and political evolution. Yet
when the implications of these demands are examined they
logically lead to a radical re-ordering of society in a
manner in which personal attributes and effort will have
diminishing relevance. In this chapter, the difference
between non-discriminatory treatment and the provision of
equal material outcomes is discussed.

Chapters 10 and 11 examine the coercive measures aimed at curbing commercial advertising. The measures have serious implications for both the freedom of expression and proprietary rights. These measures are discussed as they
illustrate the coercive utopianism and paternal
regimentation being imposed on the community with
far-reaching consequences for personal liberty. Resistance
to these measures is necessary for the purpose of reversing
the steady erosion of liberty that is taking place to impose
ideologically motivated and elitist reforms in the name of
the public interest.

Chapter 12 deals with some specific problems affecting due process and natural justice. The problems arise out of the increasingly frequent resort to non-judicial tribunals for
the purpose of determining rights and duties of citizens.
The chapter deals more specifically with the assertions made
in other parts of the publication that the judiciary
performs an indispensable role in the protection of
fundamental rights.

Chapter 13 is devoted to an examination of the nature, the
functions and the actual conduct of the bureaucratic
mechanism that has been set up for the promotion of human
rights in Australia. The Human Rights Commission epitomises
the philosophy that human rights are not matters to be
settled by individual assertion of rights and impartial
adjudication. They are regarded as the responsibility of the
government which must determine the content of rights and
regulate society accordingly. The Commission not only
defines the citizen's fundamental rights and duties, but
also engages in their active propagation and enforcement.
Lacking in impartiality, independence and training, but
equipped with substantial coercive powers, the Commission
has become an instrument of ideological propagation and an
active agency for the subversion of the more important and
fundamental rights.

Chapter 14 discusses the pros and cons of the enactment of a
Bill of Rights in Australia, with particular reference to
the "Evans Bill of Rights". Whilst not rejecting the value
of such an instrument, the methods and the objects implicit
in the "Evans Bill" are subjected to searching analysis.

Chapter 15 focuses on the often neglected subject of the
abuse of human rights. In this analysis, attention is turned
from legislative and executive threats to the dangers posed
by individuals and groups who cynically exploit liberty for
the purpose of subverting the very foundations of the free
society. These groups include unscrupulous trade union
leaders and other political groupings which are bent on
purposeful destabilisation of society with a view to gaining
short term benefits or long term radical objectives. The
problems which face society in maintaining the conditions of
peace and stability necessary for the enjoyment of liberty,
without resorting to measures which themselves undermine
liberty, are also analysed.

The work of State so-called anti-discrimination and equal
opportunity institutions have not received analysis in this
publication. This is not to say that these organisations are
any less guilty than the Human Rights Commission of
undermining fundamental rights. However problems of time and
space have prevented evaluation of the work of these often
anti-freedom and basic rights restricting organisations.

A companion volume to this is under preparation. It will
focus on institutions referred to in the above paragraph, as
well as topics not or inadequately dealt with in this
publication. These include racial discrimination, the right
of association (including withdrawal of labour) and ASIO.
The appendices contain some perspectives on these issues.